President Donald Trump has repeatedly declared that “America will never be a socialist country,” but after just one year back in the White House, he has already backed policies that may prove more progressive than anything former President Joe Biden enacted across his four-year term.
The former president claimed that his economic platform would rebuild the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, as opposed to the trickle-down strategy employed by Republicans for decades. But, despite pushing for higher taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals and other economic justice policies supported by progressives, the 100 wealthiest U.S. citizens saw their net worths jump $1.5 trillion while Biden was in office, according to the Federal Reserve, with the top 0.1% of American earners growing their capital by an astounding $6 trillion, all amid rampant inflation.
On the other hand, Trump’s creation of investment accounts for newborn children this past year does seem to, at least partially, deliver on the wealth redistribution push the progressive Left has made for years.
The newborn investment program, dubbed “Trump accounts,” was launched with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the president’s landmark July 4, 2025, spending bill. For every child born to U.S. citizens between 2025 and 2028, the federal government will deposit $1,000 into an investment account. Parents may then claim the account and manage how that money, plus contributions from family and employers, is then invested until the child turns 18, at which point the accounts will transition into individual retirement account-like plans.
But even more importantly, the Trump administration is courting the nation’s richest to supplement the government’s initial contributions personally. As of December 2025, Trump had secured two such donations, including a $6 billion gift from Michael and Susan Dell, who had previously lobbied for similar programs on Capitol Hill.
Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has also committed an additional $75 million donation of his own to supplement Trump accounts for children born in his home state of Connecticut. Dalio’s gift will go directly to Connecticut families as a part of the administration’s “50 State Challenge,” which will seek to land philanthropic support for the Trump accounts in every state.
Administration officials have signaled they view the initiative as an illustration of the president’s stated pro-natalist agenda, a financial education tool, and a means of helping American families generate savings in the pursuit of significant, life-defining purchases such as homes.
And, despite the policy bearing Trump’s name, the accounts have received some praise from the Left, including from both Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
Booker and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent Fortune 100 CEOs a letter in which they referred to the program as “a groundbreaking new investment vehicle” and called on the executives to match parental contributions to the accounts.
“Many companies have already pledged support, and we encourage your company to explore how you might contribute at a level aligned with your mission and capacity,” they wrote. “By matching contributions for employees’ families, investing in the communities where you operate, or integrating these accounts into your philanthropic strategy, you can significantly enhance the impact of this historic initiative.”
In November 2025, Pressley said in a statement that the plan “has the potential to be a transformative tool for economic justice,” though she has voiced concerns that, without additional reforms and guardrails, the program may serve to increase wealth inequality.
The Washington Examiner asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in December about calls from Democrats to increase the federal funding for Trump accounts, especially for families who may not be able to maximize their own annual contributions to the plan. And while Bessent initially answered with a typical Trump administration response, he did not close the door on bumping up those initial federal investments in the future.
“I find it rich that Democratic lawmakers, who had the trifecta [during former President Joe Biden’s first two years in office], never did this,” Bessent said at the time. “Why don’t they let us get them up and running? We’ve got four years, and then we’ll see where it goes.”
The president’s overall economic platform bears little resemblance to the Reagan-esque, free market platitudes he pushed on the 2016 campaign trail. Trump has placed heavy tariffs on every U.S. trading partner on the planet, taken “golden” government shares in technology and critical minerals companies in exchange for federal investments or tariff relief, and intervened in a number of mergers and acquisitions, such as the TikTok and Netflix deals.
Those actions have driven the president’s critics, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), to say Trump is actually a socialist, in hopes of turning one of Republicans’ most-trusted campaign attacks against them ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
His allies, on the other hand, argue that Trump’s economic platform is more akin to the state capitalism employed by Beijing for decades.
A senior Republican operative with past work on Trump’s presidential campaigns told the Washington Examiner that the president is “willing to look at policy prescriptions from anywhere, as long as they deliver for the American people.”
“He has this sense, I think, that to really beat back China, we’ve got to kind of be China,” the senior Republican operative said. “And he’ll do whatever it takes to beat China.”
“President Trump is not a socialist. Don’t write that he’s a socialist,” a former Trump White House aide joked, referencing a popular, decade-old meme and noting that the so-called “New Right” and progressive Left have both pursued populist policies in recent years. “The idea that the president has to do the same exact stuff as George Bush, or even Reagan — just because they’re all Republicans — is ludicrous. The reality is, before President Trump, both parties were selling out American families.”
“Trump is the guy who’s fighting to fix all that, and he’s, kind of, out-progressive-ing Biden in a way to do it,” the operative said. “You’d think he’d get a little bit more credit for that, but [Trump derangement syndrome] is a hell of a drug I guess.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that “Washington, D.C.’s blind commitment to consensus orthodoxy that ignored the realities of the world is exactly why Americans and America were left behind.”
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“Look no further than lopsided ‘free’ trade arrangements that let foreign cheating decimate our industrial base.” Desai said. “The administration is simultaneously pushing the free market policies — such as rapid deregulation and The One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax cuts — that do work while rectifying the America Last policies that haven’t worked to safeguard our national and economic security.”
Whether socialist or capitalist, Trump’s economic platform has bled support from voters over the past year. According to a poll published Tuesday by the Economist, the president will head into 2026 with just a 39% overall approval rating and over half of respondents saying they believe the country is on the wrong economic path.
